Harry Turtledove - Into the Darkness

Half the people in the village were out to see Herpo. Despite what Garivald had said about not wanting a crystal nearby and about being content where he was, he craved the news and gossip the spice seller had, and he was far from the only one.

And Herpo had news: “We’re at war again,” he said.

“Who is it now?” somebody asked. “Forthweg?”

“No, we already fought Forthweg,” somebody else said, and then, doubtfully, “Didn’t we?”

“Let Herpo speak his piece,” Garivald said. “Then we’ll know.”

“Thank you, friend,” the spice man said. “I will speak my piece, and then I’ll hold my peace. We are at war with”—he paused dramatically—“the black people up in Zuwayza.” He pointed north.

“Black people!” a granny said scornfully. “Save your lies for folks who believe them, Herpo. Next thing you know, you’ll tell us we’re at war with the blue people over there or the green people over there.” Laughing at her own wit, she pointed first to the east and then to the west.

But a gray-haired man said, “Nay, Uote, these black men are real.

There were a couple of’em in my company in the Six Years’ War. Brave enough, they were, but would you believe it, they had to learn to wear clothes. Their country is so hot, they said, that everybody there goes bare naked all the time, even the women.” He smiled, as at the memory of something pleasant he hadn’t thought of in a while.

Uote’s face looked like curdled milk. “You shut up, Agen! The very idea!” she said. Garivald wasn’t sure whether she disapproved of Agen’s having the nerve to tell her she was wrong or of people—especially women—running around naked. Probably both, he thought.

Herpo said, “I don’t know about this naked business myself, but I know we’re fighting ’em. I expect we’ll lick ’em pretty cursed quick, too, just like we did the Forthwegians.” He looked at Uote out of the corner of his eye. “You going to tell me the Forthwegians ain’t real, too?”

She looked as if she wished he weren’t real. Instead of answering him, though, she showered more abuse on Agen. He was the one who’d embarrassed her in front of her fellow villagers. He bent his head and let her curses run off him like the rain. Under the wide brim of his hat, he was grinning.

“Along with the news,” Herpo said, “I’ve got cinnamon, I’ve got cloves, I’ve got ginger, I’ve got dried pepper that’ll make your tongue think it’s on fire, and all for cheaper than you’d ever guess.”

Garivald had tasted fire peppers a couple of times, and didn’t fancy them. He bought a couple of quills of cinnamon and some powdered ginger and slogged back to his house. Herpo was still doing a brisk business when he left.

“Those will perk up the winter baking,” Annore said when he showed her what he’d bought. Leuba had calmed down by then, and was after the hens again. His wife went on, “What was this great news? I was making the baby shut up, so I didn’t get to hear it.”

“Nothing very important.” Garivald gave another shrug. “We’re at war again, that’s all.”

Istvan walked along the beach on the island of Obuda. Scavengers had taken most of the meat from the skeleton of the Kuusaman dragon that had fallen. It skull stared at him out of empty eye sockets. He bared his teeth in a fierce grin; a Gyongyosian might feel fear, but he wasn’t supposed to show it.

A lot of the dragon’s fangs were missing. Some of Istvan’s comrades wore one or more as souvenirs of having thrown back the Kuusamans. More, though, had sold them to the Obudans. Since the islanders did not know the art of dragonflying, they had an exaggerated notion of how much magic it required and how potent a talisman a dragon’s tooth was.

Chuckling, Istvan scaled a flat stone into the sea. Anyone who’d ever shoveled dragon shit would know better. He had. He did. The Obudans, in their ignorance, didn’t.

He wondered if he should have used the stone to knock out a couple of the remaining fangs for himself. After a moment, he shrugged and kept on walking down the beach. Money mattered little to him here on Obuda; he couldn’t buy much with it. And the women, he’d heard, wouldn’t put out for dragon’s teeth: it was their menfolk who wanted them.

A wave ran farther up the gently sloping sand than most of its fellows. He had to skip aside to keep it from splashing his boots. It still wasn’t very big. Out on the sea, Obudan fishing boats bobbed. Their sails were dyed in bright colors to make them visible from a long way off. Watching the wind push them along bemused Istvan. He’d never imagined such a thing, not while he was growing up in a mountain valley.

The Bothnian Ocean was calm now, but he’d never imagined what it could be like in a storm, either. Then the waves leapt like wild things and went down the beach only sullenly, as if they wanted to drag Obuda down under the water with them. They seemed to have teeth then, great white teeth of foam that sought to tear chunks out of the land.

He shook his head—he was getting as foolish as the Obudans. Their language had endless words to name and describe different kinds of waves. Gyongyosian, like any sensible speech, made do with one. Snow, now, Istvan thought, snow was something worth describing in detail. But the Obudans seldom saw snow.

A red and yellow and black shell caught Istvan’s eye. He stooped and picked it up. Obuda boasted any number of colorful snail shells, all with different patterns. He didn’t think he’d seen this one before. Back in his valley, snails had plain brown shells. The only good thing he had to say about those snails was that they made fine eating when fried with garlic and wild mushrooms.

Coming down from the barracks on the slopes of Mt. Sorong had been easy. Going back up took more work, even though the climb wasn’t too steep. Leaving the beach and returning to the barracks also transformed Istvan from tourist back into soldier, a transformation he would just as soon not have made.

Sergeant Jokai descended on him like a mountain avalanche. “Good to have you back with us, your splendiferous magnificence,” the veteran sergeant growled. “Now you can go fix your bunk the way the army taught you, not the way your mama taught you—if she was the one who taught you, and not some goat in a pen.”

Istvan fought to keep his face expressionless. By main force of will, he succeeded. Gyongyosians did not keep goats, reckoning them unclean because of their eating habits and their lasciviousness. Had Jokai offered Istvan such an insult in civilian life, it would have started a brawl if not a clan feud. But the sergeant was Istvan’s superior—thus his effective clan senior—and so he had to endure.

“I am very sorry, Sergeant,” he said in a voice as empty as his features. “I thought I left everything in good order before I went on my morning’s leave.”

Jokai rolled his eyes. “Sorry doesn’t get the cart out of the mud. Thinking doesn’t get the cart out of the mud, either, especially when you’re not good at it—and you’re not. A week’s labor policing up the dragon pens might do a better job of keeping your tiny little mind on what it’s supposed to be doing. If it doesn’t, we’ll find something really interesting for you.”

“Sergeant!” Istvan said piteously. Jokai had come down on him before, but never like this. Something else had to be irking the sergeant, Istvan thought. Whatever it was, Jokai was taking it out on him. He could, too, because he had the rank.

“You heard me,” he said now. “A week, and thank the stars it isn’t more. A mountain ape could have done a neater job here than you did.”

Arguing more would only have got Istvan in deeper. With a sigh, he went into the barracks to inspect and repair the damage. None of his comrades wanted to look at him. He understood that. If they showed him any sympathy, Sergeant Jokai might land on them with both feet, too.